It may be the most popular Mainland vacation destination for Island residents, but as the University of Hawai‘i women's volleyball team heads to Las Vegas for its first road trip of the 2026 season, new head coach Joshua Walker knows his program will take a serious approach.
"The mindset we're taking is that it's a business trip," Walker said earlier in the week. "Yes, we're going to Vegas. It's a business trip for the athletes, trying to make sure that you're taking care of all you need to do time-wise, schedule-wise. Everything in our schedule is pretty tight on the road. We have an itinerary, so we know what we're doing hour by hour."
The Rainbow Wahine are one of four teams playing in the Lucky Aces Women's Volleyball Invitational at the Orleans Arena. From Friday to Sunday, UH will take on Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Iowa State, and UCLA, beginning with Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Friday at 3:30 p.m. HST.
The timing of the tournament coincides with the Durango Fall Classic, widely considered the country's greatest high school girls volleyball tournament, which attracts the nation's top-ranked prep teams each year. Walker and his staff will spend their free time recruiting at the tournament, which features three teams from Hawai‘i (‘Iolani, Kamehameha-Hawai‘i and Kamehameha-Kapālama) in the 2026 field.
For the 6-2 'Bows, the tournament will serve as their final opportunity to boost their nonconference resume before their first season of Mountain West play begins with a home series against New Mexico on Sept. 25-26. With 18 conference matches on its slate, UH is aiming for a return trip to Vegas in two months, where the top four Mountain West teams will compete in the conference tournament from Nov. 24-25.
"It's going to be difficult because all these teams are talented," Walker says of this weekend's competition. "They've had success so far in the nonconference part of the season. ... The hardest thing to do is go on the road and be able to play the same way you do at home. So for us, just making sure what we've seen at home travels on the road."
Because of how late Walker took the job (in June opposed to after the 2025 season in December), all 15 members of the Rainbow Wahine roster are players he inherited.
"It's been great," Walker says of getting to know he roster as the season goes on. "Give credit to the past coaching staff. They just put together a great group of young women that want to work hard and want to be successful and want to, most importantly, represent themselves and the state of Hawai‘i to the highest ability. So, that part has been great. Just getting to be around them and getting to learn about them together."
One of the team's impact newcomers is true freshman middle blocker Rachel Purser, a Las Vegas native who has started seven of the team's eight matches. The Coronado High School alumna will see a plethora of family and friends in the stands this weekend.
What is she looking forward to the most during her homecoming?
"Definitely In-and-Out," she said of the West Coast burger chain, which does not have a Hawai‘i location. "But I'm looking forward to going home and to see my family. I haven't seen them in a while."
Christian Shimabuku can be reached at christian@alohastatedaily.com.
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